Liberated

by Steve Anderson

  I found a chair just inside the entry, lit a Lucky, and got my bearings. The band had the stage at the opposite end and to the left stood a bar. To the right, on a long table, piles of hors d’oeuvres and tiny sandwiches, salads of all colors and what looked, incredibly, like the remains of a massive smoked salmon on ice. That salmon sent my mood south. I imagined smuggling out the rest inside my jacket and delivering it to those poor souls waiting hopelessly at that side door.

  In the farthest corner, to the right of the band, was another door. It led to a cellar. A sign there read: “VIP Casino and Cabaret: Membre’s Only. Real clever, Major. I stumbled on through, for the cellar door. The MP guard there saluted and to my surprise he let me through, closing the door behind me. The landing was dark and I used it for cover as I considered the cellar below, with its vaulted stone ceiling that sweated like a moldy wine barrel. The scene looked medieval. The cellar radiated from candlelight and the ceiling glimmered as if the candle flames had hardened the ceiling’s musty slime into crystals. Tapestries and fiery red drapes lined the walls and a long table ran almost the length of the cellar, all decked out with linen, silver, wine goblets, tankards and platters of food scraps. Lush aromas of lager, meat, and cologne mixing with the smoke, mold and ancient things. A giant golden candelabra stood there. Valuables were arranged on one end—porcelains, weapons, jewels, age-old books, religious objects. Major Membre sat at the table among high-ranking officers and dapper civilians. Fräuleins rode a lap here, massaged a shoulder there. Brigitta was there. On the far end, a makeshift stage was draped off by red, white, and blue. The VIPs jabbered on like boys over a game of jacks. The major had a wood-and-ivory pipe in his mouth—a prop, the sort of thing a movie producer or a mogul might employ to look educated. He wore the latest-issue summer tunic with open collar and was talking through a constant grin, though his eyes would glaze over whenever he had to listen. These were such civilian eyes, it seemed to me, those of the salesmen and salary men, the mark of a man under pressure to perform. A man always on call. No wonder the man liked his dope.

  I gripped the railing and made my way down. A Fräulein clutching ceramic tankards of beer passed—Bärbel, sister of Brigitta—and I grabbed myself a tankard. At the table I was seeing pinstripes and smart lapels of the type I hadn’t seen since I left stateside. A couple VIPs were staring my way. I tugged at my tie, smoothed out my tunic.

  Major Membre came over grinning. “Captain Kaspar, warm welcome!”

  “Evening.”

  “You’re just in time,” the major said, close to me, feeling me out with his eyes. “You want to stay for this? You’re welcome to it. I always said you’re welcome.”

  Three times now you said it. “Yes,” I heard myself say. Major Membre wanted me to see this, flexing those muscles again. So why not watch the man show off his barrel chest? Maybe someone will come along and kick sand in it.

  “Swell, just swell.” The major slapped me on the back, led me over to the table and sat me in the middle of the bunch. “You behave yourself now, Captain,” he said, loud enough for all to hear, “and I’ll get you the best kraut coozie in the joint, but only after I’m finished with her.”

  All laughed. Major Membre took a seat across from me, boasting of “my good Captain Kaspar.” To my surprise again, the major didn’t tell them I was born a German. I met the civilians. One was a senator from Ohio, oldest of the bunch; some Congressional committee had sent him to study “local conditions.” He had mottled red cheeks, a cigarette holder. He spewed patronizing phrases like “I can assure you” and “my good man” and proclaimed that FDR himself had copied his own “proliferous” (a word he insisted was real) use of the cigarette holder. “That’s what really got the man elected,” he could assure us. There was a writer for Colliers doing a tour of Major German cities that apparently included a side trip to this whistle-stop. All said, this writer was a real go-getter, for a writer. I met two majors, two lieutenant colonels, a general from quartermaster and another from Army Air Corps. One officer wore dress OD with no identifying insignia, what I took to be the major’s man inside the Criminal Investigation Division. Some came from the region, though most were just in from Karlsruhe or Frankfurt. Most had still been stateside when the war ended. All spoke with that self-assurance only confidants can muster. These were men who knew a good bandwagon when they saw one and damn well knew how to ride it. I held my tankard with both hands, twisting it and wanting to grind it into the table. And noticed: Instead of an Alpine scene or the logo of some bombed-out brewery, the tankard bore a coat of arms specially created for the major’s MG command and town.

  Major Membre clanged a spoon against his tankard and he rose waiting for voices to cease. He tugged at the hem of his tunic, flattening his stomach.

  “Gentlemen, and ladies,” he began, winking at Bärbel (to snorts and chuckles). “I invited you here for more than a party. Consider yourselves members of a secret society.” His voice grew fuller, like one of those optimistic, know-it-all radio announcers I could never stomach. “Now, most of us have been involved in profitable ‘trade,’ some since before the war ended, a few since before the war.” He flashed a smile to a colonel whose lapels bore the insignia of Supply Section. “And we’ve had much success, have we not?”

  Flushed smiling faces nodded to him and each other.

  “Gentlemen, I wish to establish an exclusive network for the new United States Zone of Occupation. A real and live market, one that will involve only the highest quality goods.” The major picked up a gold music box imbedded with gems and cracked the lid to let out a chime. “Take a look at these fine pieces. They’re the spoils of war. Touch them, feel them.”

  The VIPs passed the objects around the table. I recognized a gilded china plate from the major’s office.

  “Why do I propose this? Fortune has shined on me here. Heimgau has been around since Roman times. In the Holy Roman Empire, Heimgau was an Imperial Free City. Baroque Period, she thrived as a bishop’s seat. You see what I’m getting at, oh yes. A place like Heimgau breeds artisans and their wondrous handwork, breeds and breeds them like so many jackrabbits. And with such a heritage comes an almost unlimited supply of merchandise. Modern, antique, ancient even. The best thing is, it’s our own domain. Let those distinguished and coddled MFAA teams chase down their grand old museum pieces and arts treasures the Nazis stole. Let them have the glory. And let them play decoy for us. Because all those gleaming goods carry with them what those high and mighty Monuments Men call ‘provenance,’ which means it is all traceable. We have something far better. Here, anonymity plus commodity equals advantage.” Membre paused and scanned the faces, waiting for silence. He was in his element, the speaker at a hometown Rotary Club. “Gentlemen, look around at your friends here.” The VIPs glanced at each other, smirking and smiling. “See what I see? We have every good man we need, and then some. Supply, transport, tactical, security, CID. Not to mention us in MG, who, I must say, are the real ones in charge in the days to come. It’s occupation time now. When’s the last time you saw an MG officer take a boot in the bee-hind from the combat brass?”

  “Doesn’t happen,” said a major. “Ike don’t let it happen, General Clay don’t, not since everyone’s going home. MG’s the outfit now.”

  “He’s right,” Membre said, “I’m talking about opportunity, what every conquering army has practiced since wars and empires began. I’m talking about the best and biggest market of all: the US of A. The Big PX.”

  Colliers writer cleared his throat. “Let’s get to it. What’s in it for us?”

  “Controlled market. Monopoly, if you will. One fellow supplies it, another partner sells it, another good fellow stores it, his partner gets it home. Everyone gets a cut down the line.”

  “My good men, if I may pontificate,” said a fatherly voice. It was the Ohio Senator. “I know Robertson perhaps better than any of you, and I assure you he’s worth his word.”

  “We can work with you, Major, sure
we can,” blurted a colonel. Heads nodded. “Can-do, Robbie!” crowed another colonel, and the others began in excitedly and at once, agreeing, praising, jabbering and hollering.

  Colliers waved a hand, then both hands. “One moment. If I may?”

  Membre waved for quiet. Voices hushed.

  “Thank you,” Colliers said. “I only have one question. How safe is this Heimgau?”

  “The safest. I command a force of reliable DP guards. Displaced Persons. Hardened men, these ones, they’re Yugoslavs with grit.”

  Colliers sniffed. “What about political stability? How is the local administration—how is Denazification affecting it? That can cause problems. MP, CID, CIC agents even. There’s a million ways to get burned on this and, with due respect, you gentlemen can’t stop all of them.”

  One of Membre’s eyelids was twitching. He quashed it with a broad grin. “Politically, we are lining up dependable and acceptable people as we speak. Take my new mayor for example: The Baron Friedrich-Faustino von Maulendorff.”

  “I know of this Maulendorff fellow,” said a General. “Politically, the man’s untouchable as far as Frankfurt is concerned. From the old school but knows how to play our game.”

  Membre nodded. “What is more, the baron has his own men in place all down the line.”

  The crowd went on with the agreeing and praising. I drank down another tankard, tore into my pack of Luckies. Meanwhile the Fräuleins were putting out most of the candles, which created a sensual light. Voices quieted. And Major Membre was watching me, a half smile distorting his face in the murkier light.

  A spotlight burst from the dark end of the cellar and shot across our heads, illuminating the red, white, and blue of the stage at the other end. We heard the crackling of a phonograph, and then the long slow notes of a piano and melodies of a flute. The curtains parted.

  A soft ankle and calf, a shiny thigh. Hoots and catcalls reached a crescendo as the spotlight traveled up the body, revealing heaving breasts and white shoulders. As the light reached her face, all the mouths dropped, silent.

  It was Katarina. She let loose a pout. Her eyes twinkled, inhaling the light. She hovered at the edge of the stage, staring us down in thigh-high mesh nylons, black short pants, and bustier.

  I stared back. My stomach rolled, pinched. I grabbed my tankard and held it in front of my mouth. Could she see me? These lights were damn bright.

  A US officer’s cap sat tilted on her head, barely holding in her hair. She sang in German, a Kurt Weill song I knew, “Nanna’s Lied,” about a streetwalker reflecting on hard years spent toiling on the Liebesmarkt, the market of love. It was a dramatic song, one my brother Max had loved. Some here could understand the words but most certainly could not. Neither camp gave a shit about the tale. Her voice stupefied them. I stopped listening to the words. I gave in to the beauty of the sounds, how she reached so deep and conjured such silky rich power from her lungs. I watched her movements, fluid and feeling. I knew how wonderful that skin felt, how firm yet smooth.

  The somber and sad melody swam, haunting and consuming. She sauntered to the front of the stage and rocked back and forth, taunting us. Heads cocked back in wonder while others’ swung slowly with the music, aware and unaware. The senator loosened his bow tie.

  The music stopped. They cheered, clapped, hollered. “Encore!” “Bravo!” “Zugabe!”

  “Goot even-ink, meina Herrrr-en,” Katarina purred, adding a faux Dietrich rumble to her voice. She pranced down steps off the stage and made her way around the table, stroking necks and heads with a riding crop—Major Membre’s riding crop, no doubt.

  “Dame’s more dangerous than ten of our tanks!” blurted Colliers to nervous laughs.

  She stopped at me. My tankard came down. I grimaced, a sick smile stuck on me. She gave me a kiss on the ear. And moved on.

  “Atta boy, Kaspar!” one of the generals roared and all joined in, barking, cackling, congratulating.

  She disappeared behind the curtain. The spotlight went out. All fell silent. “Man, oh man alive,” someone muttered. They tittered, drank, hooted. The light fired back on, to a screechy recording of “You’re in the Army Now.” The curtain parted.

  Katarina was straddling a steamer trunk, clad in a tight-fitting WAC uniform and an Uncle Sam top hat on her head.

  The getup would come off, I was sure of it. My head whirled, my stomach swirled. I got the cold sweats. I couldn’t breathe. No air or windows and no way out.

  “This ain’t cabaret,” I growled, “it’s a meat show, a lousy goddamn meat show!”

  “Who said anything about a cabaret?” someone joked and the laughs crashed over me, howling in my ears. I bolted up the stairs, grabbing at railing and knocking my shins on steps.

  “Where ya going, tiger?” Major Membre yelled after me. “You’re gonna miss the best part!”

  Thirteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, A SUNDAY, I headed back into Old Town doing my best to ignore my hangover headache, the dry furry rasp on my tongue. I first tried Katarina’s family place. Little Marta was there. Had she seen Katarina yet? I offered chocolate and cigarettes and offered to get Sally a new arm and an ear, but Little Marta only shook her head harder. She wouldn’t let me get Sally fixed up, but I gave her the goods anyway. I went and tried the equally hungover Heimgauer Hof. The drowsy new owner, Verbitska, met me at the front desk. No, there was no one under that name.

  I roamed around until I ended up at Cathedral Square. The square was empty. A few pigeons circled me, picking between cobblestones with their beaks. From here the gothic cathedral stretched on like some giant stone coffin. Its drastically slanted roof with mosaic of blue, white and black zigzags imitated the pattern atop St. Stephen’s in Vienna. At the front rose one single towering spire, so high that the sun’s rays danced brightly at its tip and I had to wince. I walked up the front steps, pushed open a small door built into the two massive front doors. Inside it was chilling cold with a faint smell of mold, yet the chill stilled my hangover. I approached the pews. A hunchbacked cleaning lady passed and gave me a hard stare because, I guessed, I hadn’t signed the cross. A protestant, I wasn’t sure how. I showed her my American smile instead. She trudged off into the confessionals.

  I sat in a back pew taking it in. Shafts of sunlight through the stained glass made colors dance around, but the stone walls and stark altar were bare and marred by holes and grotesque shapes—the previous spring, the elegant old woodworking had been removed for fear of looters. And now, with their brown Father Plant surely off to reinvent himself in some other far-flung parish if not Catholic country, this was still a body in limbo on yet another Sunday. I stared. Heard nothing here. The silence a vacuum. My eyes closed …

  I woke. I was lying on the pew. How long had it been? I popped up.

  Katarina stood behind me. Her hair was pinned up, and she wore a loose blouse that showed off her shoulders in the Spanish style. She was sweating, damp at her clavicle and cleavage. “Come here,” I said.

  Katarina slid into the pew and kissed me on the cheek. I kissed hers without thinking and then pulled back. Fighting the urge to touch her hair.

  Her eyes glistened. “How are you this morning? After last night?”

  “Me, I’m great. Everything’s jake. How was the meat show? Everything come off?”

  “The what? Oh, that. It did if you must know.”

  She grabbed my hands and held them out, like someone about to part for a long time.

  “What’s the hurry?” I said.

  “Nothing. We have time.” She squeezed at my hands, pulled me forward. “I had to perform. To get a permit, to secure permanent residence.”

  “In Munich.”

  She nodded. Her eyes welled.

  “I’m sorry about your mother. I never got to tell you.”

  “She’s better now, where she is. I really think it is true.”

  The hazy colored light twinkled in her hair. Our legs had intertwined down on the pew bench. She smiled d
own at that and, slipping one foot out of a shoe, slid her toes against my shin. I began to harden. Her face opened wide. She wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled herself onto my lap.

  “What about that cleaning lady?” I said.

  “I paid her to stay away, to lock up the doors for us …”

  My mouth joined hers, my tongue searching, finding. I lowered her down, flat on the pew. She slapped hands around my neck and pulled me down to her, and we tugged at each other’s hair, and her sweat came rolling back, like tears right from her hair, and it tasted sweet.

  Afterward, we sat on the pew, in a grim silence. Something had gotten off track. My grip on her had turned to clamps. My clamps had held her down and forced her around the other way and pressed her head to the back of the pew, so hard that her face bore a red mark from the pressure. My clamps had spread her open and I had entered her with deep, spiteful thrusts. She had to grab onto the pew’s edge with white knuckles, and it had made her sweat and pant and not in a way a girl liked. Somewhere along the way we had made love, but I had gotten too rough with her. It scared me more than her. I had never been like that with a girl. Now she pushed back her damp hair, and glared into her lap, and faced away from me. Eventually she let me hold her by the shoulders. Kiss her on the cheek to make the red go away. I could tell she had not loathed it all, but it wasn’t a kink I wanted to keep repeating even if she had liked it. I wasn’t one of her damn Wehrmacht officer lovers, some oafish rough-houser in bed.

  “That was not like you. Why don’t you love me for love’s sake?” she said.

  “I don’t know what got into me, darling,” I told her, and it made me feel even more like a heel. My new modus operandi would only help her justify leaving for Munich. I couldn’t get that out of my head, and now I was the one looking away, the shame fighting the anger but losing out. I said: “So, he cut you the paperwork?”